1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique of reproducing images stored in a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, as an image reproducing technique of reproducing images stored in a recording medium, there is a technique of reproducing images stored in a recording medium according to a predetermined file system rule, i.e., in file order or a chronological order, regardless of the directory structure in the recording medium. There is also a technique which is programmed to recognize a predetermined directory structure in advance, and reproduces only images matching a predetermined directory structure. In addition, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-049634, a technique which allows to change a directory structure of files to be reproduced.
In the above image reproducing techniques, a recording medium often stores, in a mixed state, images conforming to a specific directory structure, e.g., DCF images, and other kinds of images, e.g., images which the user arbitrarily copies into the recording medium and images conforming to a different directory structure. In this case, the above techniques do not allow performing proper image selection or determining of a reproducing order.
When images stored in a recording medium are reproduced according to a predetermined file system rule, e.g., a file order or a chronological order, regardless of a specific directory structure, images conforming to the specific directory structure mix with other kinds of images. This makes it difficult to specify a particular image.
In addition, when the user is to rearrange images, the user cannot specify an image to be reproduced first unless acquiring the file system information of all the images.
Furthermore, an image processing apparatus designed to recognize only a specific directory structure cannot reproduce images which the user arbitrarily copied or images recorded based on another directory structure.
Note that DCF stands for Design Rule for camera File system, which is a unified recording format for digital cameras. DCF defines a directory structure and a file naming rule which are used in image recording on a memory card. Exif (Exchangeable Image File Format) is used as an image recording format.